


The Green Fields of France

by Dr_Madwoman



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Death, Gen, battle memory, wwi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 21:18:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Madwoman/pseuds/Dr_Madwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fragment of memory from Andrew Lang's war experience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Green Fields of France

The ground heaves under his feet and still he staggers on and on through the muck-orders are orders, orders are orders.

A scream- machine, not human- and he throws himself down behind a blasted wall. The impact rocks the earth, throws it into the air to shower down on him and he’s back up- he’s lost his rifle- no matter, there’s human screaming now and he must press forward ( _orders are orders_ ).

He runs- he is a strong man, and his legs carry him far over the land. Dimly he knows there are others about, though he can’t distinguish khaki from gray, all is smoke and madness under the ruddy sky.

His gun is gone.

He screams now, a wild roar that comes heaving up from his  gut- there’s a trench ( _where are the soldiers?_ ), he reaches back and takes his shovel in hand- his gun is gone but he has this.

Screaming he hurtles towards the enemy ground- German, French, he doesn’t know orders are orders. Gray forms rise up, ghouls from a ghost story- his guns is gone and where is everyone and he’s used up his grenades but he still has _this._

 _  
_A bullet shrieks by his head and someone’s laughing, someone’s using his mouth to laugh because oh god he’s going to die, he’s going to die and someone’s laughing

He lunges at the gray men, swinging the shovel like a warhammer- the head slides into the stomach of one, spills him steaming on the ground- he’s lost his gun but he’s kept the shovel blade sharp like a sword, better than a bayonet.

Another comes howling out of the smoke and he turns on that one- there’s a crack, his side is wet with his own blood but he can’t feel it because the shovel blade has bitten deep into this Hun’s neck and the blood’s in the earth and getting churned into mud beneath their boots. The enemy chokes as he fall, his mouth red and his eye rolling, and some of it spatters on his face like rain ( _rain, he liked rain, he remembers)_ _._

 _  
_There’s a wail behind him and with the stranger laughing through him he turns again and sees a Hun stumble to his knees, no gun, no knife, frail hands held aloft and the fingers are as thin as twigs. He raises the shovel and just then the scarecrow kraut lifts his head and he can _see_ him, see his face and eyes.

It is a boy, gaunt and ragged and filthy, but his eyes are round and his cheeks are smooth, too young yet for a beard and he’s crying in great gulping gasps and he’s _looking_ at him and his hands are empty and out and he’s whimpering _Mama, Mama._

 _This is a child_ , Andrew thinks, and then he swings the shovel down orders are orders and he caves the boy’s skull in, gray and red in his fair hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Character does not belong to me. The bit about the sharpened shovel is true; at some point during World War I the troops decided that sharpening the blade of a trench shovel was a more effective weapon than the bayonet, which had a tendency of sticking in the enemy's ribs and leaving them vulnerable.


End file.
